There Is Such a Thing as Bad Publicity

The greatest spectacle of Super Bowl XLVIII won’t be on the field—it’ll be during the commercial breaks. In today’s fractured media environment, Super Bowl ads are the greatest opportunity companies have to put their brand in front of a massive audience. Sometimes these much-watched commercials can spark conversation for all the wrong reasons, though. Here, TIME looks back at the most controversial Super Bowl ads ever, some of which were deemed so inappropriate they never made it to air.